02-25-13%20WEB by Spectator Publishing Company

Vol. CXXXVII—No. 25

Monday, February 25, 2013

columbiaspectator.com

EcoReps expands bike-share program

Healthcare center will prioritize locals BY CHRISTIAN ZHANG Spectator Senior Staff Writer The soft yellow walls, plush couches, and colorful artwork make the main room of the EmblemHealth Neighborhood Care center on 125th Street between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard feel more like a lounge than a medical services office. EmblemHealth is the city’s largest health insurance provider, with almost 2.8 million customers. But the center on 125th Street between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard doesn’t house any insurance offices. Instead, it is part of an initiative to improve the community’s health options by educating visitors on the healthcare system, connecting them to relevant local organizations, and providing an environment to solve their individual health needs. “We want to kick away as many barriers that prevent our customers from living the happy, healthy lives we can,” Ben Scaccia, director of Neighborhood Care operations, said. “The idea is to take care of the whole person.” He said the goals of the center are to understand “what the community needs, what the community wants, identify the resources that fill those gaps, and providing guidance and support.” Scaccia said he hopes the initiative will help residents better understand their healthcare options while improving customer service, which would help retain current EmblemHealth customers and recruit new ones. “We know healthcare can be

SEE HEALTH, page 3

Initiative will allow 100 students to share 16 bikes BY ANDREA SHANG Columbia Daily Spectator

“Despite my involvement in the community,” he said, “I couldn’t think of that lightning rod—that guest that stood out as a symbol of the community’s heart and soul.” “I wondered to myself, ‘Where is the Asian Al Sharpton?’” Calvin Sun, CC ’08 and a member of the national board of directors of ECAASU, discussed the need for struggle in the fight for equality. “Everything that we have in this country,” he said, “everything that we take for granted was born out of someone’s struggle.

EcoReps’ bike-share program is expanding this spring, giving 100 students the opportunity to explore the city on two wheels. The brainchild of Columbia EcoReps, the bike-share initiative is limited to students in Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science and will be launched on March 26, providing 100 students the opportunity to share 16 bikes among individual timeshares. The pilot program aims to collect data on student usage in the hopes of laying groundwork for a permanent, large-scale bike-share program that would be available to all students at Columbia. Irene Jacqz, SEAS ’13 and one of the EcoReps responsible for the pilot’s creation, says that the two-month-long program will be a trial run to gauge efficiency and sort out any unforeseen kinks. “A pilot gives you freedom to try things out,” Jacqz said. “From campus aesthetics to student life, there’s a lot to be taken into account.” The initial program, launched last spring, included 40 students and eight bikes over two weeks. Trouble arose over the condition of the bikes, which had all been previously owned and did not have consistent standards of safety and quality. “A lot of blood, sweat, and

SEE ASIAN, page 3

SEE BIKE, page 2

ORTAL ISAAC FOR SPECTATOR

HEALTHY HARLEM

Ben Scaccia, director of the EmblemHealth Neighborhood center, wants to make healthcare more transparent.

At conference, a call for Asian-American leaders BY TRACEY WANG Spectator Senior Staff Writer Nearly 1,200 students from more than 90 universities across the country descended upon Lerner Hall this weekend to discuss what it means to be Asian-American. The opening ceremony of the East Coast Asian American Student Union conference featured prominent speakers from the Asian-American community as well as performances from student groups. Popular YouTube comedian David So and musicians Jason Chen and Clara Chung also performed.

Norman Mineta, political activist and former secretary of transportation, urged students to pay attention to the United States’ policy debate about immigration reform. Most of the discussion surrounding immigration reform was focused on immigrants from Mexico, he said. AsianAmericans, he added, were often left out of the dialogue. “Immigration debate is happening in this country, but those debates seem to forget that we’re here,” he said. “Wherever you’re from,” he said, “the bottom line is that this current debate will have

Sig Ep awards fellowship to CC first-year

profound effects for the Asian American community both today and in the future. A neutral observer simply does not exist.” MSNBC news anchor Richard Lui emphasized the need for a leader in the AsianAmerican community comparable to Reverend Al Sharpton’s role in the African-American community. Two years ago, when ESPN published an article calling Jeremy Lin a derogatory term for Asian Americans, Lui said he wanted to invite a guest on his show for a segment on the story. The problem, he said, was finding the right guest.

Local pols oppose NYCHA plan on UWS

BY AVANTIKA KUMAR Spectator Senior Staff Writer

BY EVA KALIKOFF Spectator Staff Writer

Thanks to Sigma Phi Epsilon’s first Balanced Man Fellowship, Josh Fram, CC ’16, has the opportunity to bring to life an idea he’s worked on for years. Fram, who received the fraternity’s $3,500 award on Friday, plans to use the fellowship to purchase indoor rowing machines for Camp Shriver, a camp for mentally disabled athletes, located in his hometown of Lawrenceville, NJ. Fram, who is not in a fraternity, said that the project’s focus on a sport that required both mental and physical exertion reflected the “sound mind and sound body” principles at the core of the fellowship. “Bringing together these two aspects in the Special Olympics athletes embodies exactly what this fellowship is trying to promote,” Fram said during his speech, which received a standing ovation. Fram has volunteered at Camp Shriver for five of the past six summers. He has discussed the creation of an indoor rowing program for Special Olympians with the camp’s director of sports development, Matt Wiley, but needed the funds to make it happen. According to Brian Marcus,

Upper West Side politicians are speaking out against the New York City Housing Authority’s plan to create market-rate apartments in the Frederick Douglass public housing complex, located between 100th and 104th streets from Amsterdam to Manhattan avenues. NYCHA plans to work with a private developer to build these apartments in the complex in order to decrease a $60 million debt. “This innovative plan to generate hundreds of millions of dollars of value will allow us to reinvest in NYCHA, where we badly need to make up for the devastating decline in Congressional funding,” the housing authority said in a statement. NYCHA also maintained that it has “been closely engaged with residents, community leaders, and elected officials.” Jane Wisdom, president of the Tenant Association at the Frederick Douglass Houses, declined to comment on the plan, citing a meeting planned for March 4 during which she hopes to get more information. At a Broadway Democrats town hall meeting on Feb. 21, Assembly members Daniel

TIANYUE SUN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A SOUND CORE | Fellowship chair Will Krasnoff, CC ’14, said that Sig Ep hopes to continue awarding the fellowship annually. CC ’12 and former scholarship chair of SigEp, the Balanced Man Fellowship reflects a focus on the hidden experience of the fraternity—the

challenges to maturity and personal growth it offers. This year is the first that SEE SIG EP, page 2

O’Donnell and Keith Wright raised concerns about the plan. O’Donnell expressed frustration with NYCHA’s lack of communication despite his attempts to get in touch, saying that he had called NYCHA 12 times. “I don’t understand how someone from the housing authority could not respond,” O’Donnell said at the meeting.

“It’s going to create a tale of two cities all over the place.” —Keith Wright, chair of the State Assembly Housing Committee

But last week, NYCHA representatives asked to meet with O’Donnell about the Frederick Douglass Houses plan. O’Donnell said that they told him there will be three 32-story buildings constructed on the Frederick Douglass property. He joked that NYCHA representatives said the new buildings “will be miles away from the other buildings.” When he asked them what

exactly that distance was, they said 60 feet. Wright, chair of the State Assembly Housing Committee, said he thinks that the proposed development will create tension between low-income and market-rate residents. “It’s going to create a tale of two cities all over the place,” Wright said, adding that the new buildings will likely be constructed over playgrounds and open space in the complex. O’Donnell said during the meeting that when he met with NYCHA, an employee from real estate company AvalonBay Communities, Inc. was present. AvalonBay is responsible for planning the Morningside Avalon apartment complex on the property of St. John the Divine. A two-bedroom apartment at the Avalon complex is up for $5,580 per month on Zillow.com. The concept behind the St. John apartment building was to create an 80/20 ratio of housing, with 80 percent market-rate and 20 percent affordable, low-income housing. “I’m hoping that there can be movement to say this is not the way to go forward,” O’Donnell said. “Preserving low-income housing is very important.” eva.kalikoff @columbiaspectator.com

OPINION, PAGE 4

SPORTS, BACK PAGE

EVENTS

WEATHER

A merited approach

Mixed weekend for Lions men’s basketball

A Discussion on the Future of Europe

Today

Why Professor Hughes’ approach in Frontiers was necessary.

Going up? Columbia’s facilities need to be taken care of with forethought.

The Light Blue picked up just its third Ivy win of the season against Penn at home after suffering a blowout loss to Princeton the night prior.

Tomorrow

A distinguished panel discusses the current challenges facing Europe. Low Rotunda, 4 p.m.

UBUNTU Join Quarto and the African Students Association for an open mic event. 501 Dodge, 7:30 p.m.

48°/ 36° 50°/ 43°

PAGE 2

NEWS

HENRY MURPHY / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

HOT WHEELS

The bike-share program will provide 16 bikes for a group of 100 students to share.

EcoReps still hoping to open bikes to BC, GS BIKE from front page tears went into fixing the bikes,” Jacqz said, but in the end, students found the bikes to be uncomfortable and inconvenient due to older features such as drop-handlebars. This year’s program will feature an assortment of new bikes, collected from donations from bike-share vendors and purchases from a local bike shop. The bikes will be stored in a rack outside of Lerner for the duration of the program. Jacqz envisions students using the bikes for recreational purposes, with friends, and riding to and from internships and classes against the backdrop of an increasingly bikefriendly city. “Bikes and New York go together really well,” she said. EcoReps is not yet able to incorporate General Studies or Barnard into the pilot program, but the group hopes that a successful pilot will encourage administrators to get involved and perhaps oversee the installation of a Columbia-sponsored bikeshare program. “I see no reason for this not to be a campus-wide thing that’s broadly accessible. It doesn’t belong under EcoReps necessarily,” Jacqz said. She pointed out that many other colleges already have

institutionalized bike-share programs. “It’s up to the bureaucracy to figure out how to fund this,” Jacqz said. So far, the pilot program has seen significant student response, Jacqz said. Though EcoReps only advertised the program through its Facebook event, Jacqz said that the initiative generated an impressive amount of interest.

“From campus aesthetics to student life, there’s a lot to be taken into account.” —Irene Jacqz, SEAS ’13 co-chair, bike-share pilot “It’s really motivating to see that,” she said. By Feb. 22, more than 200 people had submitted their names to the online sign-up sheet—double the number that the bike-share pilot will be able to accommodate. “We are all very excited about starting the bikeshare at Columbia,” EcoRep Raphaelle Debenedetti, CC ’14, said in an

email. “This could not have happened without the bike-share committee’s tremendous work over the past two years.” New York City is also planning a bike share system that is scheduled to launch in May. The program, which will cost $95 for an annual membership, will not initially have any stations in Morningside Heights or anywhere in Manhattan north of 62nd Street. Eric Grossman, GS/JTS ’14, however, had more doubts about the program’s usefulness. “It’s a hard neighborhood to have bikes because there are a lot of hills,” he said. Debayan Guha, CC ’15, said that increasing the availability of bikes on campus was not a necessity, noting that some Columbia students “come here because there’s public transportation and we don’t need to bike anywhere.” He said he would consider making use of the bike share, but not on Columbia’s elevated, stair-laden, and pedestrianpacked pathways, but enjoyed the idea of being able to use a bike elsewhere, if provided with one. “I wouldn’t use it on campus. I would take a bike and I’d go to the park, and I’d ride that bike right on that path on the riverside. I’ve always wanted to do that,” Guha said. news@columbiaspectator.com

Fraternity hopes to make fellowship annual SIG EP from front page SigEp has offered the Balanced Man Fellowship. In past years, the chapter offered a Balanced

Man Scholarship of a smaller amount of money to honor individual achievement. The Fellowship—which can be awarded to individuals or

TIANYUE SUN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

BROTHERLY LOVE | SigEp president Justin Feit, CC ’14, delivered remarks at the Balanced Man fellowship ceremony Friday.

groups and is specifically centered on a community service project—is a new initiative. Andrew Chapman, CC ’15 and vice president of programming for SigEp, said the fellowship received approximately 10 applications. From there, the pool was narrowed down to Fram and the runner-up, Engineers without Borders, a group whose project involved building water treatment systems in Ghana. Will Krasnoff, CC ’14 and fellowship chair, said that the award, which is funded by alumni donations, represents an opportunity to make a deeper impact and show that Greek life is not as insular as some people think. Marcus said that getting the fellowship off the ground had been a challenge. In his time at Columbia, the chapter struggled to start up the fellowship, as the chapter “didn’t have the core group of guys that they do now.” “The chapter wasn’t ready,” he added. William Parish, CC ’15 and a brother of SigEp, said the fellowship reflects the reality that Greek life is more than just partying. Krasnoff also said the chapter plans to continue the fellowship in future years. “Our goal is to make this an annual fellowship,” Krasnoff said. avantika.kumar @columbiaspectator.com

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

NEWS

PAGE 3

Center will provide behavioral health, pharmaceutical support HEALTH from front page confusing,” he said. “We help our guests navigate the system to maximize what’s available to them.” The center, which opened in late January, has a registered nurse, behavioral health specialist, and pharmacist, and will provide general and specific health information to locals. The center will also function as a customer service center for EmblemHealth insurance clients. Scaccia said visitors who come into the center will have a “face-to-face conversation” that enables employees to understand their specific health needs. From that conversation, next steps can be taken to address the questions or concerns the visitor had. “We want to help facilitate the process and advocate for our customers walking in the door,” Scaccia said. “So their interaction with the rest of the health care system … goes as smoothly as possible.” He said one of the goals of the center is to help individuals meet their daily needs, such as food, shelter, and sanitation, which have an obvious impact on the individual’s well-being. He described the center’s services as something that “crosses the health insurance system line.”

OLACHI OLERU / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

JUST DANCE

The ECAASU opening ceremonies featured performances from musicians and student groups.

Conference on Asian identity draws nearly 1,200 students ASIAN from front page It’s tough simply being AsianAmerican, and to be taken seriously as a group of people who are tired of being so fucking polite.” Even though it’s tough, he said, it’s worthwhile because it brings about the change necessary. “Let’s embrace tough and let’s embrace struggle,” Sun said. This year’s ECAASU conference theme was “Within, Across, Beyond.” Derrick Fu, CC ’13 and one of

the directors of the conference, said that ECAASU was a unique opportunity for Asian American students to come together. “The most powerful thing about ECAASU is that we can bring people together,” he said. “We’ve been the oldest and largest Asian-American student conference for the past 36 years.” David Su, a private at the U.S. Military Academy, said that it was interesting to come to Columbia and be surrounded by so many Asian-American students because West Point does not have a large population of

Asian Americans. “I really like what Norman Mineta said about taking action and how you think of actions now and how they affect the community in the future,” he said. Tina Kit, SEAS ’13 and codirector of the conference, said that the goal of the conference was to allow Asian-American students to discuss AsianAmerican identity. “We want ECAASU to offer a forum for everyone to share their experiences as AsianAmerican students. It’s a big step toward our goal of looking

at Asian Americans not as stereotypes but as individuals,” she said. Melanie Gao, CC ’14 and codirector of the conference, said that the ultimate goal of the conference was “to build coalitions and to empower.” “We want our attendees to leave with a great sense of self and greater sense of what they can do for the community,” she said. Gao added, “We want them to leave with more questions than they have answers.” tracey.wang @columbiaspectator.com

“If those aren’t solid, we aren’t able to have a conversation about healthy eating … things like that,” Scaccia said. “We are helping you take care of yourself.”

“We want to kick away as many barriers as possible” —Ben Scaccia, director of EmblemHealth Neighborhood Care He stressed the importance of understanding the needs of the community, and said that was one of the reasons Harlem was selected as one of the two initial sites for the Neighborhood Care initiative. “We had a significant number of members we wanted to serve … and a significant need for services here,” Scaccia said. He said feedback in the first month of operation has been “overwhelmingly positive.” “We really believe we are serving people,” he said. “We fully plan on expanding into other neighborhoods.” christian.zhang @columbiaspectator.com

EDITORIAL & OPINION

PAGE 4

A common humanity The 137th year of publication Independent since 1962 CORPORATE BOARD SAMMY ROTH Editor in Chief FINN VIGELAND Managing Editor ALEX SMYK Publisher

MANAGING BOARD JEREMY BUDD Campus News Editor CASEY TOLAN City News Editor GRACE BICKERS Editorial Page Editor YASMIN GAGNE Editorial Page Editor LESLEY THULIN Arts & Entertainment Editor ALISON MACKE Sports Editor MYLES SIMMONS Sports Editor

esterday I whiled away an hour I should have spent writing papers. I reflected with a friend while seated in the peculiar not-quite-in-Ferris limbo of those singularly self-swallowing armchairs on the second floor of Lerner. We were getting quite meditative and discussed, among other things, how much we had changed LUKE since arriving at Columbia a year and a half FOSTER ago. Foster We both lamented the inevitable but somewhat tragic fact that our friend the C o re circles had tended to shrink and entrench. After all those halcyon days of NSOP and freshman year, where everyone seemed willing to welcome everyone else, sophomores tend to keep their eyes on the next assignment and forget to look up for new friends. This has the effect of fragmenting community. The only things that seem to bring a broad cross-section of campus together are grand celebrations such as the Varsity Show, Bacchanal, and Orgo Night. But those are largely expressions of our Dionysian side; there’s less of a chance to feel included for those of a more retiring temperament.

MEGAN KALLSTROM Head Copy Editor DAVID BRANN Photo Editor STEVEN LAU Multimedia Editor REGIE MAURICIO Design Editor RYAN VELING Design Editor SARA GARNER Spectrum Editor RIKKI NOVETSKY The Eye, Editor in Chief DOUG BIENSTOCK Online Editor ISAAC WHITE Online Editor ROB FRECH Chief Development Officer WES RODRIGUEZ Chief Revenue Officer ALAN SELTZER Chief Marketing Officer REBEKA COHAN Staff Development Director

DEPUTY BOARD News Abby Abrams, Samantha Cooney, Avantika Kumar, Chris Meyer, Cecilia Reyes, Tracey Wang, Christian Zhang Opinion Jess Geiger, Joohyun Lee, Daniel Liss Arts & Entertainment Emma Finder, Charlotte Murtishaw, David Salazar Sports Muneeb Alam, Caroline Bowman, Molly Tow Copy Emily Sorensen Photo Luke Henderson, Douglas Kessel, Olachi Oleru, Jenny Payne, Kiera Wood Design Alanna Browdy, Karen Nan, Sinjihn Smith Multimedia Derek Arthur, Jacqueline Morea, Eli Schultz, Morgan Wilcock Spectrum Jenny Xu Social Media Max Marshall Development & Outreach Audrey Greene, Kristine Musademba Sales & Monetization Frederic Enea, Michael Ouimette Promotions Emily Aronson, Emily Sun Staff Development Lillian Chen, Tom Reidy

ASSOCIATE BOARD News Luke Barnes, Lillian Chen, Benjamin Gittelson, Emma Goss, Jillian Kumagai, Gina Lee Opinion Antonia Blue-Hitchens, Sofia de Leon, Daniel Garisto, Supriya Jain, Tait Rutherford Arts & Entertainment Olivia Aylmer, Rachel Dunphy, Carroll Gelderman, Jenny Payne, Sarah Roth, Alison Schlissel, Gretchen Schmid Sports Theresa Babendreier, Melissa Cheung, Mollie Galchus, Ike Kitman, Robert Mitchell, Kyle Perotti Copy Becca Arbacher, Camille Baptista, Maya Becker, Jessie Chasan-Taber, Molly Doernberg, Augusta Harris, Caroline Lange, Do Yeon Grace Lee, Miri Rosen, Nicole Santoro, Ben Sheng, Rosa Smith Photo Peter Bohnhof, Lily Liu-Krason, Tianyue Sun, Qiuyun Tan, Courtland Thomas Design Sarah Batchu, Benjamin Bromberg Gaber, Allison Henry, Grace Kim, Will McCormack, Burhan Sandhu, Moriah Schervone, Daniel Stone, Lea Thomassen, Ione Wang, Elizabeth Williams Development & Outreach Peter Bailinson, Marc Heinrich, Maren Killackey, Josh Kim, Francesca Profita, Sunpreet Singh Sales & Monetization Allison Kammert, Omeed Maghzian, Nicolas Sambor, Mark Shapiro, Akshat Shekhar Promotions Devin Bergstein, Zander Daniel, Amanda Kane, Nicole Strausser Staff Development Christopher Chyung, James Horner, Kiana Khozai, Jane Ma

EDITORIAL BOARD Nelson Castaño, Ryan Cho, Gabriel Falk, Jennifer Fearon, Margaret Mattes, Hilary Price, Steele Sternberg SUNDAY NIGHT STAFF Copy Ben Gittelson

CONTACT US 2875 Broadway, 3rd Floor New York, NY 10025 info@columbiaspectator.com @ColumbiaSpec Daily Spectator (212) 854-9549 Business (212) 854-9550 Business Fax (212) 854-955 For general comments or questions about the newspaper, please write to the editor in chief and managing editor at editor@columbiaspectator.com. CORRECTIONS The Columbia Daily Spectator is committed to fair and accurate reporting. If you know of an error, please inform us at editor@ columbiaspectator.com. EDITORIAL POLICY For more information about our editorial policy, visit www. columbiaspectator.com/about.

We lack a shared understanding of fundamental identity as human beings. I spent the rest of the day mulling over why this seemed to be the case and came up with one underlying reason. There are many superficial factors, certainly—class and ethnicity play a part, as do the vagaries of housing. But the more basic reason, I believe, is that we lack a shared understanding of fundamental identity as human beings. Without that shared understanding, only shallow communities can form. If we label ourselves primarily in terms of a field of study, we’ll only hang out with classmates. If we see ourselves primarily as part of an ethnic identity, we’ll have a hard time relating to people who don’t share our background. If we conceive of our very being as caught up in athletics—or in deconstructing the masculinities of football—that will create a chasm between those like us and those unlike us. This is an insight gleaned from Edmund Burke, whose “Reflections on the Revolution in France” is, for me, one of the most lively and energetic reads on the CC syllabus. Between sweeping, emotive passages on the events in France, Burke interjects reflections on the deepest possible questions of human nature. Historical events and political decisions are not arbitrary or random for Burke—they grow out of much larger conceptions of human characteristics. People, for Burke, are very complicated. Simultaneously very flawed and very great, rational and emotional, free yet dependent on others, humanity has both an animal and a spiritual side. His paradoxical phrase “a religious animal” gets at this perfectly. It means that societies of people do exist to fulfill one another’s practical needs—but there is also an element of inspiring and encouraging each other to be virtuous. If people everywhere share this common moral nature— if we are made to be generous, loving, humble, just, joyous—then there is a real ground for respecting and understanding one another. This idea of basic, shared purposes cuts across all the superficial differences of race, ethnicity, class, nationality, background, language, interests, and temperaments, and gives us much to appreciate in one another. But Burke is such a nuanced thinker that, despite sketching a common platform for knowing one another, he cherishes variety, diversity, and particularity. For Burke, each of us ought to honor our backgrounds, the places and people we come from, because we are but “life-renters” of the genes and stories of our ancestors. To recognize our common humanity and the glory it confers upon us is also to recognize our mortality, our limitedness, our fragility. Sometimes a poet can say it better than a philosopher—Robert Browning, a Victorian poet of titantic imagination, sounded a similar note of poignant nuance in his dramatic monologue, “Cleon”: “Every day my sense of joy Grows more acute, my soul (intensified By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen; While every day my hairs fall more and more, My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase.” Though there is such greatness, creativity, and beauty in every human being, we must bow to our own frailty and support one another. Let us look for new people to befriend across the typical barriers of our social circles, and let us build each other up in the pursuit of virtue. Sometimes that just means reminding our perpetually tired friend to nap or making tea for someone. Sometimes it means jumping up and down at Bacchanal. Together, we can treasure each other and do the hard work of building community. Luke Foster is a Columbia College sophomore. He is vice president of Delta GDP, head of content for the Veritas Forum, and a member of Columbia Faith and Action. Foster the Core runs alternate Mondays.

Responding to the right problem BY STEELE STERNBERG As noted in Friday’s staff editorial, I refused to lend my support to the editorial board’s comments regarding Professor Emlyn Hughes’ lecture in Frontiers of Science last Monday. I stand apart from my peers in this case not because I disagree with the comments of the board, but rather because I believe they failed to identify both the fundamental objection to Professor Hughes’ lecture and the core reason motivating that lecture. Both deserve to be made explicit. The board criticizes Hughes for making a pedagogical mistake—not connecting the content of his lecture to a substantive lesson. This statement is certainly true, but it misses the real reason Hughes’ lecture is creating such controversy. Had Hughes, chair of the spring semester of Frontiers, dressed up in a pink jumpsuit and played Looney Tunes videos, the board’s critique would still stand (for such behavior is no more nonsensical in this context than are images of 9/11 and Nazi Germany), but it is unlikely that the lecture would have provoked such a response. This observation ought to point us towards Hughes’ specific choice of violent, triggering imagery as the center of the controversy in this case, not his pedagogy. The question is not whether Hughes is a good or bad educator—one needs far more than one video of one part of one class to render such a judgement—but instead, whether he crossed some sort of line by using the content that he did. On one side of this debate are those who cling tightly to academic freedom and are willing to defend Hughes’ lecture as a way to “shake up” the student body through a subtle and penetrating metaphor. On the other side lie those who are committed to the mental safety of the students and the creation of a comfortable, value-neutral learning space. I tend to lean toward the former camp, but even this debate is not really the heart of the matter. Professor Hughes’ lecture is not the problem; rather, his lecture is merely the latest symptom of the deeply problematic structure of Frontiers of Science. Last semester, I had the pleasure of speaking with the fall semester chair of Frontiers of Science, Professor Nicholas Christie-Blick, about the goals and challenges of the course. Professor Christie-Blick and I agreed that

FEBRUARY 25, 2013 the mission of Frontiers of Science, which is to educate Columbia students on how to meaningfully engage in scientific discourse for the rest of their lives, was a worthwhile cause. We also discussed the substantial main challenge of the course; helping students who come from vastly different educational backgrounds to gain that literacy. The way the Frontiers curriculum tries to accomplish its goal while overcoming this challenge is to teach very simple qualitative and quantitative reasoning (thus keeping the material within the reach of the students coming in with the least preparation) via a few units taught by leading faculty that focus on their specific research within a given scientific field. If this pedagogical model represents a hypothesis about how to best instruct students of vastly different skill levels on the basic scientific habits of mind, then Hughes’ lecture represents the results that ought to disprove such a hypothesis. Under the current model, lectures are poorly attended, grade inflation is rampant (50 percent of the class received an A- or better the semester I took Frontiers), and student enthusiasm for the course, while notoriously hard to assess objectively, does not seem to have changed greatly from when I took the course—a time when the prospect of going to one’s recitation section was greeted with resounding apathy, if not frustration. Hughes’ lecture tried to solve these frustrations by sparking student interest via shock and awe that was so over the top and tangentially related to the material at hand that it has now temporarily made the course the laughingstock of academia. The lecture was a desperate grab for student interest at the expense of their own mental well-being (in some instances) and, more importantly, their ability to learn what Frontiers intends to impart. Hughes was responding to a real problem in Frontiers. This problem is important to solve if we want to get closer to reaching the goal that Frontiers has set for itself. It is unlikely that Hughes’ lecture will actually impart much learning on the students of Frontiers (except, perhaps, for the poorlyarticulated metaphor about discarding preconceptions that defenders of Hughes will no doubt muster time and again). Let us at least hope that it can spark some serious introspection on the part of Frontiers administrators and instructors about the structure of the course and how they might adapt to better overcome the instructional challenges with which they are all too familiar. The author is a Columbia College senior majoring in philosophy. He is a member of Spectator’s editorial board.

D A U M S D A Y BY KARL DAUM

LETTER TO THE EDITOR To the Editor: Spectator has not yet dealt with the significance of Monday’s lecture by Professor Hughes. I was there—let me try to explain what I heard and saw. His performance was not a way of introducing quantum mechanics. It was an introduction to a set of lectures that include the emergence of nuclear weapons from the science of quantum mechanics and the emergence of non-governmental groups accumulating nuclear-fissionable material as an unexpected threat we must all face in this century. It was this new risk, he said, that was so scary that one had to be prepared to strip away all preconceptions and start from scratch. Professor Hughes intended to pass on the fact that his material is a shocking aspect of today’s life. He shocked, and now will be teaching about what is really shocking, to an audience no longer so easily able to keep an emotional distance. As a professor of biology now teaching in Frontiers of Science and as a former dean of Columbia College, I

warrant that his performance got his audience of 550 firstyear students to set down their defenses against thinking about nuclear war and the transition from 60 years of peace after the Cold War to an unknowable future with emerging risks of nuclear-fissionable material used for violent ends. That’s what great teaching is about, and that’s why academic freedom must always include the freedom to teach the most difficult of ideas. It is also what the Core Curriculum is about—or should be, at least. I am very proud to know that Frontiers is a part of the Core Curriculum, and it is my fervent hope that my colleagues will assure its continued presence in the Core. Robert Pollack, CC ’61 Dean, Columbia College, 1982-1989 Director, Center for the Study of Science and Religion Director, University Seminars Feb. 23, 2013

STAFF EDITORIAL

Required renovations S

tudent complaints against Columbia Facilities are often unnecessary and unfair, but the grumblings about the broken elevator in John Jay are not. Although still not open for student use by press time, we are relieved to hear of the arrival of the mechanical part needed to fix one of the two elevators in the building—which needed to be custom-made, as it was out of production. Still, the delay in repair is only the repercussion of irresponsible administrative decisions. Rather than waiting for maintenance problems like

this one to arise, administrators in facilities should take pre-emptive action to ensure that they are prepared for these events when they occur. Inevitably, one of the 80-year-old elevators in John Jay was going to break in the near future, so administrators should not have been caught off guard. Steps should have been taken to ensure that the building’s maintenance staff was prepared so that students on the top floors would not have to wait in such long elevator lines for three months to avoid walking up 15 flights of stairs. Of course, this points to the much larger issue of campus renovations across the University, particularly in residence halls. While Furnald has been renovated twice in the past 10 years, many other buildings, including John Jay, have been largely ignored and remain woefully outof-date. The elevators and the bathrooms, as indicated in Friday’s article “John Jay up in arms over facilities

woes” (Feb. 22), are only two of the many maintenance problems. Our residence halls are where we spend the most time in our four years here—it is in the best interests of the University to make us reasonably happy in our residential environments. John Jay plays host to scores of students taking part in Columbia programs during the summer months. The administration should consider hosting these students in other halls and using the off-season to make necessary renovations. Instead of maximizing short-term utility, the University’s staff should focus on maximizing the experiences of students already here and ensuring that the quality of life does not significantly deteriorate over the long run. The posters placed around campus calling attention to the elevator woes of John Jay may be a bit much—but, in the end, they have a point. After all, 15 flights of stairs are a lot after a hard day’s work.

The Columbia Daily Spectator accepts op-eds on any topic relevant to the Columbia University and Morningside Heights community. Op-eds should be roughly 650 words in length. We require that op-eds be sent exclusively to Spectator and will not consider articles that have already been published elsewhere. Letters to the Editor should be no longer than 350 words and must refer to an article from Spectator or The Eye or a Spectrum post. Submissions should be sent to opinion@columbiaspectator.com. Please paste all submissions into the body of the email. Should we decide to publish your submission, we will contact you via email.

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

CLASSIFIEDS

PAGE 5

CLASSIFIED AD RATES: $8/00 per first 20 words. 25¢ each additional word. Ad in all boldface $4.00 extra. All ads must be pre-paid. 2 business day deadline. Call 854-9550 for information; or fax ad to 854-9553.

2 BR CO-OP APT FOR SALE $290K for 2 BR, 1 bath co-op on 136 St betw Riverside & B’way. The apt has charming accommodations. 10 ft high ceilings, hardwood floors, laundry in basement. Close to public transp, CU, Riverbank Pk. Income restrictions apply. To view, please call Brian at (212) 831-1368 or email brianresales @gmail.com 2 BR CO-OP APT FOR SALE $220K for a 2 BR co-op apt in elev bldg on St Nicholas Ave & 133 St facing St Nicholas Park/City College. The unit has high ceilings, but requires TLC. Income restrictions apply. To vew, please call Brian (212) 831-1368 or email to brianresales@ gmail.com 3 BR CO-OP APT FOR SALE $239K for a 3 BR co-op apt in elev bldg on St Nicholas Ave & 133 St facing St Nicholas Park/City College. The unit has high ceilings, but requires TLC. Income restrictions apply. To vew, please call Brian (212) 831-1368 or email to brianresales@ gmail.com 2 BR APT 18 MINUTES FROM CU $165K for 2 BR co-op apt located on 160 St betw B’way and Amsterdam. Hardwood floors and spacious layout. Close to public transp. Income restrictions apply. To vew, please call Brian (212) 831-1368 or email to brianresales@gmail.com

PROFESSIONAL EDITING by Columbia Ph.D. Dissertation and academic style expert (APA, Turabian, MLA, etc.). Typing services available. (877) 9229422.

EARN $8000 A CYCLE NYC healthy women 19-29 needed as egg donors. Help someone create a family. Confidential. Apply at MyDonor. net

DOCUMENTARY SCREENING The Vanishing City (thevanishingcity. com). Told through the eyes of tenants, city planners, business owners, scholars and politicians. It exposes the realpolitik behind the alarming disappearance of NYC’s beloved neighborhoods —including in recent years our own Park West Village neighborhood! Wed, Feb 27, 7:00 pm, The New York Youth Hostel, 891 Amsterdam Ave (103 St). Sponsored by Park West Village Tenant’s Assoc. Suggested donation: $10 (additional gratuity appreciated).

PSYCHOTHERAPIST Sensitive, empathetic therapist for individuals and couples dealing with relationships, college/career issues, parenting, infertility, adoption, third party reproduction. Sliding scale fee. Contact Phyllis Lowinger, LCSW at (212) 666-3400. Email: phyllow@gmail.com

HOUSE FOR SALE In Bergenfield, NJ. $350K for a recently renov house with a spacious layout. The first floor features hickory hardwood floors, high ceilings, and an EIK w/stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops. The LR has exposed brick. The master BR has a bathroom and a small office adjacent to it. Second floor features 3 BRs and a bath. Fully furn basement has the following accommodations: separate entrance, kitchen, LR, bath, and a BR. The house is energy efficient and has solar panels, washer/dryer in basement, huge backyard with deck, and a car garage. For more info or to view, please call Brian (212) 831-1368 or email to brianresales@gmail.com

$$SPERM DONORS WANTED$$ Earn up to $1200/mo and give the gift of family through California Cryobank’s donor program. Convenient Midtown location. Apply online at: SPERMBANK. com SPERM DONORS WANTED Healthy males between the ages of 18-39. Earn up to $160 per week. Call Reprolab, Inc. 332 E 30 St, NYC, NY 10016. (212) 779-3988.

REMOVE UNWANTED TATTOOS Board Certified Dermatologist specializing exclusively in Laser Tatoo Removal. Columbia alumnus, Class of ‘81. www.TattooRemovalExpert.com. Call (212) 358-7500.

PAGE 6

SPORTS MONDAY

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

sports briefly MEN’S TENNIS

After a disappointing 4-0 loss to Cornell in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference finals, men’s tennis (5-3) got back on track this past Friday as the team handily bested visiting Binghamton 6-1. The No. 46 Lions started things off on the right foot with a 3-0 doubles sweep and never looked back, taking five of six singles matches to complete the comfortable win. Strong doubles play was a welcome sight for the Lions after a dismal performance against Cornell. All three doubles teams won their matches, led by sophomores Ashok Narayana and Max Schnur, who downed the Bearcats’ Ismael Dinia and Bastian Bornkessel 8-7. Sphomore Winston Lin, playing in the top singles spot, also dominated his opponent 6-1, 6-3. The Lions will look to build upon their renewed momentum next Friday as they take on George Washington at the Dick Savitt Tennis Center. —Alexander Bernstein WRESTLING

Columbia wrestling (6-8, 2-3 Ivy) split its two weekend meets to finish the regular season. The Lions started with a bitter 16-15 loss to Harvard (8-5, 3-2 Ivy). The teams came out even in the first four weight classes, but the Crimson took the lead with a win at 157 pounds, while the Lions lost one point for bench misconduct. The one-point deduction may have not seemed decisive at the time, but that single point would prove to be the margin of victory. The Light Blue won three straight bouts, but Harvard triumphed in the last two. Columbia bounced back to defeat Brown (9-9, 1-4) 25-12 in its last match of the season. Brown took the first bout with a 8-7 decision, but the Lions fought back to win the next six. Senior Jake O’Hara’s 11-3 victory propelled the Lions to a double-digit lead over the Bears, and junior Josh Houldsworth followed suit by pinning his opponent in a mere 1:51. The Lions finished the season 6-8 overall and 3-5 in Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association duals, but their victory over Brown gives the team momentum as it heads into the upcoming EIWA Championships. —Sara Blad WOMEN’S TENNIS

Women’s tennis (3-3) swept its competition over the weekend, defeating Maryland on the road on Saturday before topping Akron at home on Sunday. The Lions, ranked No. 52, were not adversely affected by competing on consecutive days, handily winning both of their matches with scores of 6-1. The Lions started off fast against the Terps, earning the doubles point by taking the top two matches. Junior Bianca Sanon and freshman Kanika Vaidya starred in first doubles, crushing Maryland’s duo of Vroni Van Berlo and Olga Gaistruk by a score of 8-1. Likewise, the Lions performed admirably in singles, taking five of six matches. Vaidya and sophomore Crystal Leung impressed in second and third singles, respectively, as the former secured her victory in only two sets, 6-3, 6-0. On Sunday, the Lions won the second and third doubles matches to secure the first points of the day. The Light Blue also won the top five singles matches against Akron. In first singles, Sanon subbed for Nicole Bartnik, the Light Blue’s top singles player, but the Columbia junior still crushed Akron’s Angelina Jogasuria by a score of 6-3, 6-2. —Ike Clemente Kitman MEN’S SQUASH

The No. 11 men’s squash team fell to No. 10 Williams, 6-3, as it was eliminated in the semifinals of the B Division College Squash Association Team Nationals. Three Light Blue squash players recorded wins, including sophomores Danial Saleem and Mohamed AbdelMaksoud. The previous day, the Lions beat No. 14 Navy, with sophomore Ramit Tandon achieving the Lions’ only three-set sweep in the matchup. They finished up the tournament with a 7-2 loss to Dartmouth in the third-fourth place consolation match. Tandon, senior Tony Zou, and junior Theo Buchsbaum picked up wins in the final match of the season. The last competition of the season will be Individual Nationals from March 1 to 3. Last year, Tandon lost in the finals to Harvard’s Ali Farag. —Eric Wong

For live updates, follow

@CUSpecSports

LUKE HENDERSON / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN

Kacie Johnson notched five goals to dominate the Mountaineers.

Lacrosse starts year with impressive win BY ROBERT MITCHELL Spectator Staff Writer In a dominant start to the season, Light Blue lacrosse defeated Mount St. Mary’s, 15-4, in its home opener on Saturday. After Mount St. Mary’s tied the score earlacrosse ly on at 1-1, the Lions racked up six straight goals to get up 7-1

by the end of the first half. After that, the outcome was never in doubt. Senior attacker Kacie Johnson continued her record-setting play from the previous season, notching five goals while tallying two assists. Junior midfielder Paige Cuscovitch and sophomore attacker Sarah Greenberg also had stellar performances, each scoring three goals. The Lions’ defense forced 16 turnovers and kept the

Mountaineers scoreless for over 20 minutes in the opening half as Columbia built its lead. Junior goalkeeper Skylar Dabbar secured four saves, and freshman goalkeeper Colleen Packer made another three to further stifle any hope of a comeback performance by the Mount St. Mary’s team. The lacrosse team will face off against Lafayette as the team travels to Easton, Pa., this coming Wednesday. sports@columbiaspectator.com

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

SPORTS MONDAY

Painful road losses for Light Blue WOMEN’S BASKETBALL from back page

DAVID BRANN / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAHER

JUMP-STARTING THE LIONS | Senior Uju Ofeche helped the Light Blue achieve three of the top four spots in the long jump.

Lions earn third and ﬁfth at Ivy Championships TRACK AND FIELD from back page and senior Mike Murphy each took third place in the 3000-meter run and 5000-meter runs, respectively. Junior Samuel Miner took fourth in the 500-meter dash, the shortest event in which the Lions took a top-five position. The Light Blue was also successful in two relay events, taking second in the 4x800-meter relay and third in the distance medley relay. But the men could not keep up in points with high-scoring

Cornell and Princeton. “We don’t have many athletes in the field events and the short sprints and the hurdles,” Fish said. “Not contending in these events makes it impossible to score enough points to win the team competition.” Nevertheless, the men’s team, though not yet a full and dynamic squad, is continuing to make the necessary changes to compete for the Ivy title. “Some guys from the football team have joined the team, and I am extremely grateful for their dedication,” McFann said. sports@columbiaspectator.com

game began, the Quakers still ended up winning 66-48. Early in the first half, the Lions unleashed a barrage of three-pointers, giving the impression that the game was evolving into a shootout. In the first half, the Lions hit five and the Quakers sank six from deep. “We were going to go into the game to take what we felt the defense was giving us. Certainly the three-point shot was one of the things we were looking for,” Nixon said. “I wouldn’t say we entered the game actively stressing that we need to shoot a lot of threes, but those opportunities presented themselves from the way they were playing defense in the first half.” In spite of the impressive shooting performance in the first half, the Lions went 0-7 from beyond the arc after the intermission. Once the Quakers managed to stifle the Light Blue’s proficiency from the three-point line, the momentum quickly shifted. “We were kind of matching them bucket for bucket for the most part,” Nixon said. “We went into the half down eight, but we were pretty even. We went through a stretch there where they switched to a zone defense and we went cold from the outside while they were in that zone and we didn’t hit any threepointers in the second half.” Although the Lions had a rough weekend on the road, Nixon said he was pleased to see junior guard Taylor Ward excel in her first game starting for the Light Blue this season after battling an injury for much of the season. She hit a trio of three-pointers and led Columbia in scoring with 13 points against Penn, making her the only Lion to reach double figures last weekend. The Lions are on the road for another pair of Ivy League games next weekend. On Friday night the Light Blue heads to Yale before traveling to Brown on Saturday. sports@columbiaspectator.com

PAGE 7

MONDAY MORNING

POINT GUARD

4 GAME 2 week

GAME 1

game ball

The game ball goes to Princeton’s Denton Koon. The forward had an outstanding game, hitting nine of his 13 shots from the floor, including two from downtown. Koon was the game’s leading scorer with 23 points, and also put up four rebounds, three assists, a steal, and a block in his 25 minutes of work.

game ball

The game ball goes to Grant Mullins, who came off the bench to put together his finest game in weeks. The freshman led the Lions with 18 points, brought down four rebounds, had three steals, and added an assist for good measure. The Canadian also helped Columbia increase its lead down the stretch, hitting each of his eight free throw attempts in the game.

turning point

Though the Lions went into the locker room down by 16 at halftime, a good run to start the second half could have put them right back in it. Instead, the Lions came out flat, allowing Princeton to go up by 22 points before Steve Frankoski hit a trey to give the Light Blue its first second-half points after nearly three minutes of play.

turning point

The Lions and Quakers started the game at a frantic pace, with each team hustling down the floor to get a quick basket. But after the first few minutes went back-and-forth, the Lions took control with a 21-7 run, highlighted by John Daniels flying into press row to save a possession that Maodo Lo converted into a trey.

top performer maodo lo

The freshman guard was the lone bright spot in a dismal night for Columbia, hitting six of his 11 shots from the field, and totaling 16 points. He added two rebounds, three assists, and a steal.

top performer brian barbour

Barbour put together a solid game against the Quakers, scoring 12 points. The senior hit seven of his eight free throws—three coming after a double-technical foul was issued on Penn.

ivy standings

ivy schedule

PCT

Harvard Princeton Cornell Yale

9 7 5 5

2 2 5 5

.900

.500 .500

Penn Brown Columbia Dartmouth

4 4 3 2

5 6 7 8

.444 .400 .300 .200

.778

GAME ONE AT CORNELL W 67-58

GAME TWO VS. CORNELL L 66-63

GAME THREE AT PENN L 62-58

AT PRINCETON

GAME FOUR L 72-66

ivy scoreboard Harvard..........................................65 Brown.............................................47 Dartmouth.................................... 6 7 Yale..................................................78

KIERA WOOD / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

ON THE DOWN LO

Freshman Maodo Lo was key in helping the Lions earn their third Ivy win.

Lions come back to split weekend games MEN’S BASKETBALL from back page Columbia against Princeton, as the Berlin native led the home team with 15 points. Frankoski’s six was the Lions’ next highest point total. But undeterred by its dismal performance the night before, Columbia flipped the script against Penn on Saturday. The Lions started strong, highlighted by the freshman backcourt duo of Lo and Grant Mullins. The two guards led the Light Blue with eight points apiece in the first half, as Lo followed a strong performance against Princeton with another solid night. With senior guard Brian Barbour back on the floor playing significant minutes, Mullins bounced back from a forgettable outing in which he shot 2-of-10 from the floor

and missed all four of his threepoint attempts. “It feels really good actually, as a confidence thing, it really helps a lot as a shooter,” Mullins, who finished with 18 points, said after hitting his first three-pointer since Feb. 2. After neither team was able to gain a clear advantage in the opening minutes, the Lions went on a 21-7 run to take control of the game. A pair of threes by Lo gave the home team a 25-11 lead with 6:55 to go in the first half, and senior forward John Daniels gave Columbia an additional boost with his hustle. Daniels tumbled into press row to keep alive a possession that resulted in a Lo trey, and came up with a huge block at the other end to give the Lions an additional spark. After Penn cut the deficit to eight, Barbour hit a floater as

the clock wound down to give Columbia a 35-25 halftime lead. The second half got off to a very rough start for both teams. After more than seven minutes of play, the two squads had only eight second-half points combined. Neither team really improved, as Columbia shot 10 percent from the floor in the final 20 minutes. Penn fared only slightly better, shooting 16.7 percent. The Lions still managed to outscore the Quakers in the period, however, thanks to a 19-of-22 performance at the free-throw line. The Lions had a brief scare when Lo came off the floor limping after being called for a travel, but he eventually came back in as Columbia secured the win and avoided spending another week at the bottom of the Ivy League standings. eli.schultz @columbiaspectator.com

GAME FIVE VS. DARTMOUTH L 60-57

GAME SIX VS. HARVARD W 78-63

Penn................................................79 Cornell........................................... 71 Dartmouth.....................................50 Brown.............................................59 Princeton....................................... 72 Cornell........................................... 53 Harvard.......................................... 72 Yale..................................................66 PIXBOX STANDINGS: WEEK 4

1 Sam Tydings 2 2 4 5 5 7 7 9

GAME SEVEN AT BROWN L 58-55

GAME EIGHT AT YALE L 75-56

GAME NINE L 65-40

GAME TEN VS. PENN W 58-41

GAME ELEVEN VS. YALE 3/1, 7 P.M.

GAME TWELVE VS. BROWN 3/2, 7 P.M.

GAME THIRTEEN AT HARVARD 3/8, 7 P.M.

GAME FOURTEEN AT DARTMOUTH 3/9, 7 P.M.

VS. PRINCETON

15-9

Melissa Cheung

14-10

Rebeka Cohan

14-10

Peter Andrews

12-12

Minnia Feng

11-13

Eric Wong

11-13

Tyler Benedict

9-15

Alexander Bernstein

9-15

Muneeb Alam

8-16

SPORTS MONDAY MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25 • PAGE 8

Lost season not reason to lose hope in Lions

Men’s basketball ends losing streak with Penn win BY ELI SCHULTZ Spectator Senior Staff Writer In a bittersweet pair of contests this weekend, the men’s basketball team showed both what could have been and why it did not come to pass. Columbia (11-13, 3-7 Ivy) was picked to finish near the top of the Ivy standings this season and was even considered to be a title contender by some. But the Lions have been unable to turn flashes of brilliance—such as wins at Villanova and at home against Harvard—into anything more substantial. And though they beat Penn (7-19, 4-5 Ivy) decisively on Saturday night, they failed to even make things interesting the night before. The Lions opened the weekend with

espite a nice win on Saturday, the men’s basketball team was mathematically eliminated from contending for the Ivy title over the weekend. The best MUNEEB it can do now is 7-7, ALAM while the worst that P i c ke d conference-leading Harvard can do is 9-5 Ap a r t (and second-place Princeton, 8-6). In early November last year, I wrote about how you should go watch the men’s basketball team this year. I also wrote that each and every team is susceptible to a variety of factors that could derail its season, including injury. Whoops. Yes, other things have gone wrong, too. But no matter whom you ask, not having star guard Brian Barbour at 100 percent hurts. Throw in the fact that his heir-apparent, freshman guard Grant Mullins, injured his ankle in a loss to Dartmouth (two days before the win over Harvard), and has been sick as well, and you’re not left with a pretty picture. Effectively losing two starters hurts any team, and unfortunately it seems to have hurt Columbia basketball an awful lot. And it’s worth mentioning that the Lions have had plenty of other injuries to deal with as well. Last year, the story played out differently. After losing all-Ivy guard Noruwa Agho for the season in the nonconference home opener, Barbour was able to step up and emerge as one of the best guards in the league, bringing the Lions close to huge upsets on a weekly basis during Ivy play. You do have the teams that rise to the occasion: the 2011-12 men’s basketball team and the 2010-11 Boston Bruins are two examples I can think of. The Bruins lost star playmaker Marc Savard to a concussion, and after going down two games in the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals, star right wing Nathan Horton, but came back to win the title. But for most teams, losing key players means getting worse. It’s pretty intuitive. Moving forward, it’ll no doubt be hard watching what could have been (like the win over Penn), while knowing it can no longer be (that is, Ivy League champions). Unlike in pro sports, there’s no high draft pick to immediately reverse the fortunes of the team. There’s nothing that can be done about the injuries and the illnesses this season. Conference play is short in any college sport, and, clearly, a couple of mishaps here and there can really mess up a team’s plans. I’m sad that it had to happen to Columbia this year, but next year... Next year can always be different. There are countless unpredictable elements that have the potential to make a team better. There is growth from the youth, players stepping into new roles, new talent coming in. It’s easy to get caught in a cycle of pessimism. Look through Columbia’s recent records in many sports, and, well, they’re not particularly inspiring. But that isn’t rigorous analysis. Past records aren’t necessarily predictive. Coaches come in and out, as do players. Some years, you have injuries. Some years, other teams have cheating scandals and lose talent. “Luck,” for lack of a better word, is key. There was never any concrete cause for the Curse of the Bambino, or for the curse on the Chicago Cubs (title-less since 1908). There was no curse on the St. Louis Blues, who made the playoffs 25 years in a row but never made the Stanley Cup Finals, and in fact only managed two conference finals appearances. And there is no underlying reason for why seemingly unlucky things keep happening to Columbia’s marquee teams, whether it’s ill health this year, Agho’s decision to forego a final year of college basketball, or reigning Ivy Player of the Year Dario Pizzano’s decision to turn pro despite having a chance to play another year of baseball at Columbia. That’s why I’m able to stay positive all the time. One day, the breaks will go the other way. They have to. And then... then I’ll, for once, have a marquee championship team to root for. I don’t know about you, but I’m hopeful for next year. Muneeb Alam is a Columbia College sophomore. He is the sports columnist deputy for Spectator. Picked Apart runs biweekly. sports@columbiaspectator.com

DOUGLAS KESSEL / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

MULLING A COMEBACK

Grant Mullins helps to end a three-game skid with a brilliant performance off the bench.

Track and ﬁeld Rough weekend for women’s ﬁnishes strong basketball with 2 blowout losses at Ivy Heps BY KYLE PERROTTI Spectator Staff Writer

BY MELISSA CHEUNG Spectator Senior Staff Writer Though the women came into the weekend looking to defend their Ivy title, the men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams finished in fifth and third places, respectively, at the Ivy track League Heptagonal and field Championships. On the women’s side, Harvard claimed the title for the first time since 2000—its third time in program history—edging out Cornell by a score of 117-112.66. The Lions tallied 85 points to reach the podium. For the men, Cornell took the top prize, with the Big Red beating Princeton by just one point, 157156—the tightest margin of victory since 1986. The Light Blue finished with 50 points. Although both the men’s and the women’s squads fell could not repeat their outstanding finishes at Heps last year, they still managed to come away with several strong performances. On the women’s side, the Lions fell two places short of the repeat title they sought heading into the championships. Junior Marvellous Iheukwumere captured the Ivy title in both the 60-meter dash and the 200-meter dash. The Light Blue took first, third, and fourth places in the long jump thanks to the efforts of senior Uju Ofoche, sophomore Nadia Eke, and senior QueenDenise Okeke, respectively. Okeke and Eke also went 1-2 in the triple jump, with freshman Addy Sonaike taking fifth place behind them. There were 13 top-five finishes in total, but the women were more dominant in the field events than they were in the running events, which set them back and created the point deficits behind Harvard and Cornell. The men had eight top-five finishes and showed particular dominance in the mid- and long-distance events, as expected. In the 800-meter run, junior Harrison McFann took second place, followed by sophomore Connor Claflin. Sophomore Brendon Fish took fourth in the 1000-meter run, while sophomore Daniel Everett

SEE TRACK AND FIELD, page 7

This weekend, women’s basketball (3-20, 1-8 Ivy) played a pair of away games, looking to snatch its first road win of the season. But Penn (14-9, 7-2) and Princeton (18-5, 9-0) proved much too tough, beating the women’s Lions by a combined basketball margin of 80 points. First, the Light Blue headed to Princeton to take on the Tigers, who were seeking their 32nd consecutive victory against Ivy League opponents. Though head coach Paul Nixon said there were improvements in some areas from the first matchup against Princeton, the game still ended as a 98-36 Princeton blowout. “We improved significantly in the rebounding area from where we were in the first game,” Nixon said. “However, the number of turnovers we had, combined with the number of three-point shots they were able to hit, led to a very lopsided score.” Princeton managed 33 points off

COLUMBIA

PRINCETON

COLUMBIA

PENN

turnovers to Columbia’s three, one of the key factors that led to the staggering margin of defeat. “The overall difference that prevented us from ever being able to come back and make it a game at all was our excessive turnovers,” Nixon said. “The beginning of the game, we did a pretty poor job of executing the defensive game plan which led to some easy baskets for them early in the game.” For the third game in a row, sophomore guard Miwa Tachibana led the Lions in scoring, this time with eight points. Leading all scorers in the contest was Princeton guard Michelle Miller, who netted 21 points off the bench for the Tigers. Though the Lions seemed to bounce back well as the following night’s

SEE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL, page 7

PRINCETON

COLUMBIA

PENN

COLUMBIA

their third straight loss, as Princeton (14-9, 7-2 Ivy) defeated Columbia on its home court on Friday, 65-40. Freshman guard Maodo Lo drew first blood and gave Columbia a 3-0 lead on an early trey, but after a layup by guard T.J. Bray gave Princeton a 9-8 advantage with 15:31 to play in the first half, the visiting Tigers never looked back. “I just think we hung our heads and showed our youth a little bit,” Columbia head coach Kyle Smith said. “They just out-competed us. We didn’t compete. You don’t do the first part, nothing else matters.” Forward Ian Hummer led the way for Princeton with 13 first-half points, as the Tigers out-rebounded the Lions 18-8 in the first 20 minutes and held a 36-20 advantage at the intermission. The rest of the game followed a similar path. Columbia watched the deficit balloon to 22 before sophomore guard Steve Frankoski hit a three to give the Light Blue its first points of the second half. Princeton continued to dominate behind the stellar performance of sharpshooting forward Denton Koon, who put up 17 in the second half and finished the night with 23 points on 9-of13 shooting from the field. The Tigers’ lead peaked at 31 late in the second half before Columbia closed out the game with six unanswered points. Lo was the leading scorer for

SEE MEN’S BASKETBALL, page 7

scoreboard men’s basketball Princeton Columbia

65 40

Penn Columbia

41 58

women’s basketball Columbia Princeton

36 98

Columbia Penn

48 66

men’s tennis Binghamton Columbia

1 6

women’s tennis Columbia Maryland

6 1

women’s tennis Akron Columbia

1 6

men’s squash Fourth place in B-Division CSA Team Nationals. Finish the season No. 11.

lacrosse

Mount St. Mary's 4 Columbia 15

track and field Ivy Championships Women: 3rd place Men: 5th place

wrestling

KIERA WOOD / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A TAYLORED RETURN | Taylor Ward’s strong return was a lone bright spot.

Columbia Harvard Columbia Brown

15 16 25 12